I Have Seen War
by RainKrystal
Summary: In which I shamelessly steal from FDR, and one of his lovely quotes. A glimpse of World War II through the eyes of the States, and America, and England, since those two hams keep finding their way into all my stuff. Trivia answers!


**Warning:**

Contains OCs, blood, and history.

**Diclaimer: **I don't own Hetalia. If I did, I'd be very rich indeed.

**Rating:** T for blood.

**Note: **These are my OCs for the States and American Territories; if you want to see more of them go to my profile and follow the link please.

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**"I have seen war."**

New York dives down through the air, blood pounding in his ears as the sound of gunfire pierces the sky. To his left he sees a plane go down in flames, but he can't stop to wonder if it was one of his or not, and the voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like New Jersey's reminds him there's no time to "do something stupid," like try to save a man who's probably already died since his engine has caught fire. Right now, New York has to worry about saving his own skin, since he has an enemy plane in his sights with one of its friends on his tail. If he wants to live through this dogfight, New York has to concentrate, no matter how hard the wounds he's sustaining as his men die all across the globe are making that task.

**"I have seen war on land and sea."**

West Virginia barrels up the Normandy beach, screaming bloody murder as the mortar shells rock the sand. A man stumbles beside him, and West Virginia leans to pull him up when he notices that the man's lost a leg from the last shell that dropped. The man looks up at West Virginia with frightened brown eyes, and West Virginia sees that he's no man at all. This is just a boy who seems too young to fight, he probably faked his age to get into the Army. West Virginia drags the man behind a barrier that's been set up on the beach, and passes him off to a group of soldiers who're crouching there as well. One of them nods, stripping off the man's now empty pant leg, and uses it to make a tourniquet. West Virginia looks back out at the destruction on the beaches, and waits until the men behind the barrier are done tending to their wounded before they nod at him one by one and West Virginia takes the wounded boy onto his shoulders, handing him his rifle. "Here we go boys." With that they all ran screaming back into the fray, and West Virginia swore he was going to do whatever it took to get them all out alive again.

**"I have seen blood running from the wounded."**

Minnesota works frantically over the man on the table, doing his best to staunch the blood flowing from his shoulder. The bullet had pierced close to one of the man's major arteries, and it was a minor miracle that the man's friend was even able to get him back to the medical tent before he bled out. Then again, Minnesota saw the friend, and that other man is in almost as bad shape as the man Minnesota is currently trying to save. He sews up the wound with a needle, not remembering if this particular one is sterile or not anymore; he lost track after the fourteenth man he saw today. He pushes up his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and feels the wetness as he accidentally smears some of the man's blood on his face as he does so. Minnesota tries to wipe it off with his forearm as he keeps working with his other hand. All he succeeds in is spreading the blood around, but he doesn't care; right now, he has lives to save.

**"I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs."**

Montana coughs viciously as the mustard gas trickles into his lungs, stumbling out of the deadly cloud as he tries in vain to find the rest of his unit. He tries to call out the names of his men, but only exacerbates the coughing, this time spitting blood into his fist as his system tries to expel the gas. "Curlew!" He calls out, hacking again into his fist. "Johnson!" Montana hears shouting coming from the cloud of gas, and he runs back in, screaming out his friend's names; "Roy! Harper! Mi-!" He coughs again, the last end of a name dying in the sound of gunfire and wheezing. Another form shambles out of the cloud a ways ahead, and Montana runs over as fast as he can to the side of the man, finding not one but two of his men leaning on each other as they exit the cloud of gasses. _'Thank God.'_ Montana thinks as he leans to support one of the soldiers. _'Thank you, God.' _

**"I have seen the dead in the mud."**

South Carolina runs over the trench lines, heavy gear barely slowing the strong State down as he does so. He sees a man lying on the ground in an American uniform, and he stops to check on the man, kneeling in the mud as the bullets whistle overhead, not caring how much of a bad idea it is to do what he's doing right now. Bile rises in South Carolina's throat as he finds that the man is mangled and dead already by the time he rolls him over. South Carolina's heart clenches sickly, but he stands again, continuing to run, knowing that he has to reach enemy lines if he wants to prevent more men like the one he found from dying today.

**"I have seen cities destroyed."**

America searches worriedly through the wreckage of the falling buildings as the London Blitz continues; he's looking for England, let neutrality be damned. He's come as himself, as Alfred F. Jones. For now he's just an American, and not America; and he's going to find his friend. The damage is immense to England's city, but America knows that somewhere, England is still fighting, still surviving. Because that's just what England does; the stodgy elder Nation is a fighter to the end. America knows that it would take something more than the Germans to lay the mighty once Empire low, but he can't help worrying anyway. America rips the rubble out of the doorway to another wreck, and swears colorfully as he finds that this building doesn't contain England either. A voice coughs behind him, and America whirls on its source; "What took you so long?" America cracks a relieved grin as he sees England standing there with a somewhat joking expression, taking it in that the other Nation is covered in bits of rubble and soot, carrying a fire bucket. "I needed to find a good baby-sitter first." America jokes and England punches the other Nation lightly on the shoulder. "You great git. Come on and help me with the fire brigade, will you?" That's when America notices the hints of red beginning to seep through the other man's army uniform.

**"I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before."**

Michigan never really had the heart for warfare. He just can't do what some of his "brothers" do, charge the enemy with battle strumming in his veins; Michigan could never put on that uniform and face the world. He always felt like he'd just disappoint everyone by not living up to the standards it implied. None of that had ever stopped him from working at the bases, though. He might not be a mechanical whiz like Indiana or Texas, but didn't mean he couldn't help; repairing what he could, or at the least handing over the wrenches as they're needed. Every little bit helps, he figures. Maybe that's what makes it so easy for Michigan to make friends with the soldiers that come in and deploy from base; the fact that his little odd jobs send him all over base, ready to goof off and share a (heavily edited) story with the boys about his crazy family back home. Michigan always manages to get them laughing again, especially when they have no hope left. Michigan is an honorary member of the gang to the boys on base, his pranks were always funny, and he never seems to let the world get him down. He figures there's also no point in correcting that last bit. The boys need their smiling assistant mechanic to greet them when they get back, right? It just gets progressively harder each and every day; when they tell him that it was Jack who didn't come back this time, -a guy from Kansas who'd gotten the draft just as he'd gotten out of high school, who got teased for liking Broadway with a sweetheart back home- or maybe it would be Donny, -twenty-eight; he'd always wanted to enlist after hearing his dad's war stories, but never got the chance after he settled down with a family, then got the draft anyways. Donny who kept a picture of his wife and daughter in his breast pocket, "close to my heart." And then sometimes, almost none of Michigan's boys come back at all. Yet Michigan keeps smiling, because the boys need him to. And he'll be damned if he can't at least give them that much.

**"I have seen children starving."**

Kentucky walks the streets of the French town his unit has stopped over. This town has been lucky enough not to have been directly considered a point of value by the invaders and had been mostly left to its on devices by the German forces. The streets are still cold and barren, though; it's not as if this place has escaped the war entirely. Kentucky can imagine that this was once a beautiful French village in the countryside, now its food supplies have been confiscated by the invaders, and all the valuables taken away from their owners, except for those who were able to hide theirs quickly enough to do any good. A little boy comes runs out form one of the houses, while hands reach vainly to grab him as he darts out to the strange new soldier. "Jean!" A mother's voice cries out in strangled anguish as the little boy slips from between her fingers, and tugs Kentucky on the sleeve. _"J'ai faim." _He tells Kentucky. "I'm, sorry, I don't understand." The State tells the boy, and the boy tugs on his sleeve again, this time pointing to his mouth and to Kentucky's gear. _"Avez-vous n'importe quoi pour manger?" _Kentucky understands the gist of this one well enough as he follows the boy's gestures, eyes scanning over his frame and revealing the signs of hunger all over his body. Kentucky reaches into his pack, and finds one can of rations there that he'd been saving for a time when he'd need the extra food badly. He hands the food to the boy, and the boy's eyes shine as he takes the can of rations away from the State, _"Merci beaucoup!" _The boy tells him, running back into his home, where his mother hugs him close to herself, as if she'll never let him go again. The mother turns to Kentucky, nodding thankfully at him with tears in her eyes and Kentucky salutes the woman. _"Bénissez-vous, monsieur." _She says to him. Kentucky only has an idea of what she just told him, but the sentiment is all there even though he doesn't quite grasp the direct meaning.

**"I have seen the agony of mothers and wives."**

How often is Delaware going to have to walk down the street and see a funeral procession? How often is she going to have to see the families dressed all in black as she goes about Dover, watching the weeping wives and sisters as they grieve for their loved ones? 'This is why we wanted neutrality,' Delaware thinks desperately, as her body aches from both the deaths of her soldiers and from the sleepless nights she spends awake from fear for her family. A hearse pulls by as part of a funeral train, the pine box casket on the back on its back. Delaware bites her hand as she tries to chokingly stifle a sob when she can't help but imagine that it's Pennsylvania in the casket, or maybe its New York or Massachusetts in that pine box; not the soldier whose remains were sent home this time.

**"I hate war."**

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**Quotes:**The quote belongs to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led America through most of World War II, as well as tried to pull him out of the Great Depression. I found his quote, and needed to use it.

**Translations:** I apologize if my French is attrocius, it isn't my first, or my second language, nor am I anywhere close to fluent.  
_J'ai faim._: I'm hungry.  
_Avez-vous n'importe quoi pour manger?_: Do you have anything to eat?  
_Merci beaucoup!_: Thank you very much!  
_Bénissez-vous, monsieur._: Bless you, sir.

**Trivia:** Sigh. Still no one has answered the trivia for Memories but I'll answer it anyway:  
**Question:** The trivia question for today has to do with Lee's quote about Jackson's death. This one is more obvious, but does anyone know why I chose that quote of his about Jackson?  
**Answer: **When Jackson died, it was due to blood poisoning from a bulletwound to his left arm. However, before he died, said left arm was removed by doctors in an attempt to save his life. He died anyway, and the arm was buried at a different site than he. Lee said that losing Jackson was like "losing his left arm" because Jackson had lost his left.  
**Winner(s):** None, since no one even bothered to answer.

**Trivia:** As for the trivia to The Worst, here's the question, and the answer:  
**Question:** The tirvia today is why I chose Morocco to be where France was. **  
Answer: **France was in Morocco because Morocco was the setting of a very famous American film that was made just prior to America's joinging of World War II, titled Casablanca. It used an Axis Powers: Hetalia style metaphor, several decades before the manga would come into being.


End file.
